Sunday, March 8, 2009

rufus the rigid robin (plus an update)

On Friday (when we were visiting Offsprings #1&2), we noticed a robin outside the kitchen window of Offspring #2's apartment:

The robin (named Rufus by Offspring #2) stayed in this very position... for the entire day. I'll zoom in a bit, but the picture was taken through a window so it isn't super clear:

I don't mean to be macabre (or maybe I do), but Rufus was "a goner" as my grandmother used to say. It was, in a word, weird. I have never seen a dead robin just perched like that in a tree.

However, Offspring #2 presented an alternate theory which is a bit more upbeat: Perhaps the woods in the back of his apartment are enchanted. After all, that is where he saw Hedwig's cousin--pictured below. (I posted about the owl some months ago.) If that's the case, hopefully the spell on Rufus will be broken soon.

UPDATE by Offspring #2: Rufus on Day 3Rufus has folded his little wings and bowed his little head as if in prayer. Make of that what you will...

Over the past 30 years, Mansour Engineering have completed thousands of projects of varying degrees of complexity in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Quebec, the Yukon and Northwest territories

[url=http://www.internetmosque.net ] audio Explanation of the English only Quran (for the first time on the internet) [/url]

Heretics

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Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26] Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC] Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181] Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181] subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183] After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183] Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183] Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World). Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28] John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522] University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59] Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.